"General! The Russian firepower is too fierce, we can't hold on any longer! The troops are in full retreat, the casualties are too high!"
"The armored forces have suffered serious losses, and many companies have lost contact! We are trying to restore field communications, but it is too difficult. There are enemies everywhere, and Russians are rushing towards us everywhere. The troops cannot even maintain the front line."
"Report! Lieutenant Colonel Kreiser has come to report that nearly half of his infantry has been lost. He has already thrown his guard platoon into the battle and requested immediate reinforcements."
"...."
Communications staff, messengers, and adjutants...
Almost everyone around him brought bad news one after another. Without saying a word, Lieutenant General Dritz sat on a big stone on the roadside with a Mauser 98k rifle used as a walking stick.
With one free hand, he clenched his fist and put his forehead on his head with his head bowed. The whole posture was like a replica of the "Thinker" in the German battlefield by a famous European sculptor.
At this point, Lieutenant General Dritz has no energy to get angry and curse. A group of losers under his subordinates have shouted and complained many times, but what's the use? How should the situation worsen?
Even if it gets worse, it won't help if you yell. It will only make you more exhausted and powerless.
"How many available troops do we have? Counting the reserves that have not yet been put into combat."
"..."
The people around me were a little dumbfounded. They looked at me and me with big eyes and small eyes. They didn’t know whether to tell the truth or tell a better lie. They couldn’t make up their minds.
People dared to speak, but in the end, the rather responsible chief of staff took the initiative to stand up.
"Judging from the summary of battle reports received so far, there are approximately more than 18,000 people capable of fighting."
"But I must remind you that this number is still decreasing at an extremely fast speed, with new casualties every minute. It may be a company lost every ten minutes, or it may be a battalion lost every ten minutes. Our battlefield
Communications were so fragmented that the front-line troops fighting the Russians could not even provide effective feedback on real-time battle conditions and had to rely on messengers to deliver messages, let alone real-time updates on casualties."
When the war reached this point, the German army found that its front-line troops' field communications had been cut into pieces by the Russians like minced meat.
The regiment could not contact the battalion, the battalion could not find the company, the company did not know how many men were left in the platoon, and even the platoon leader did not know whether a certain squad under his command had been completely wiped out by the Russians and whether there were any left alive.
The battlefield has been turned into chaos, the kind of chaos caused by the German army's own unilateral actions.
To say that there is still hope of breaking out and fighting out is to lie to oneself. Even if the reserve team is put in, the best result is just to defeat the Russians' aggressive "attack against attack" style attack, which can stop them.
The Russian tank would have been too much trouble if it had continued to charge like a bull into a glass shop.
What? You want to take advantage of the trend and then attack again?
Go to sleep, child, everything is true in the dream. You can even reach Moscow in one go and capture Stalin alive.
"...."
Lieutenant General Dritz, who was holding the cane and Mauser rifle, had a gloomy face. Although he said nothing, he still felt pain in his leg.
The sprain on my right leg was caused by a car accident due to the slippery road in the snow and the rush to break through. The entire open-top bucket truck overturned and rolled and fell off the dirt road.
The valet driver suffered a broken cervical vertebra and vomited on the spot. Lieutenant General Dritz had better luck and was thrown away the moment the car skidded off the road. The final result was just an upside-down barrel truck.
The impact on his calf resulted in muscle contusion and fracture of the calf bone. The rest of the damage was not serious, and of course there were no missing parts throughout his body.
He was lucky enough to save his life, but Lieutenant General Dritz didn't feel that the goddess of luck was looking after him, and there was no saying that "if you survive a catastrophe, you will be blessed later", because what happened after this was even more unbearable to look at.
The news comes one after another, which is extremely annoying, just like now.
The main force breaking out of the encirclement was fighting fiercely with the Russians, being pinned and rubbed in the snow. It was only a matter of time before the main force of the Russian army, which was pressing hard on the front battlefield, came over. Lieutenant General Dritz felt that there were powerful enemies in front of him and behind him.
I was about to suffocate, and the more I thought about it, the more my head felt like it was about to burst. I had no clue or solution at all, and it seemed like a dead end with no solution.
The people around him were still stunned. Lieutenant General Dritz, who was in an extremely bad mood, didn't know if he really cared about these people under his command, but he did speak quietly again after waiting for a while.
"That damn Austrian corporal ruined the victory and ruined all of us!"
"We could have retreated earlier. If we had left this hellish place earlier, it might not have been the result now. The Russians couldn't catch up with us! Just because of his stupid head and random command, we wasted a whole night! Tens of thousands of German troops
The soldier's life became his stupid funeral gift, why didn't the bomb kill him! This damn Austrian corporal!!!"
"..."
No one stood up and yelled, "You betrayed the Führer," and then did some smart operations to show how loyal they were.
The people who can stand next to Lieutenant General Dritz now are his confidants and right-hand men who have followed him in all the wars in the north and south.
Of course, the reason why he didn't jump out and refute Lieutenant General Dritz was not just because of this.
What's more, because these people present have access to these people at the core command level of the Armored Corps, they really know what happened in the past 24 hours from yesterday to now. They also know what exactly caused the incident that could have been avoided.
The problem has worsened to the point where it is now.
If I didn't say it before, it doesn't mean that everyone doesn't know about it or don't agree with it. It just needs someone with a high enough status to take action and a person with weight to speak. Some things should be said by subordinates, especially when
From the perspective of leaders, that is ultimately inappropriate. Even if the rigid Germans are smart, they are not capable of such a lack of emotional intelligence.
Now Lieutenant General Dritz has pierced this layer of window paper and made it clear what everyone wants to say.
But there was no situation where everyone agreed with what you said and what I said, and no one even had any mood swings. As usual, everyone should be sullen and silent.
There is no other reason, so what's the use of having emotional fluctuations at this time? It can't change the objective reality and what's happening.
There are people present who have access to the core command level. Who can fail to have some knowledge and vision? It is normal not to do useless things after seeing the current situation clearly. This also shows that Lieutenant General Deritz and his subordinates
Guys, at least you haven't lost your basic calm judgment and thinking skills.
As for what to do next, Lieutenant General Dritz, who felt that he was on the verge of crumbling, calmed down and already had the answer in his heart.